


three-legged race

by youcouldmakealife



Series: between the teeth [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 07:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before they start in the NHL, David barely knew Lourdes, and maybe that was for the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	three-legged race

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Clo for the readover.

David doesn’t remember meeting Lourdes. He imagines it’s irrelevant, the meeting, though lord knows the media would consider it fated. Important. In all likelihood, David met Jake Lourdes when they were young, in one of the multiplicities of tournaments, Lake Placid, London, Rochester, a blur of Southern Ontario and upstate New York. He doesn’t remember it, not specifically, though if he asked one of the reporters bunched in front of him, mics in his face, he bets they could tell him, tell him whether it was a handshake line in Lake Placid or an illegal hit in London or neighbouring urinals in Rochester. He bets they know. He doesn’t, however, nor does he much care. It’s irrelevant. There’s no point wondering. 

*

David has known Jake Lourdes’ name since he was fourteen years old. Has played him since he was sixteen, new to the under eighteen and shaking with pride, just to watch Lourdes and his team hand them silver with a shit eating grin. Turned it around when he was seventeen, captain now, facing Lourdes, captain himself, and serving the States that silver medal right between their teeth.

They’ve been placed as rivals since people figured out they’d be important, the brash American and the polite Canadian, like they’re national figures instead of teenage boys. When Canada bows to the US for gold he feels the rivalry, the grin on Lourdes’ face so fucking obnoxious he wants to smack it off. When Canada wins the next year, shakes hands on the other side of losing, he bets Lourdes feels the same.

But mostly the labels don’t even make sense: David’s polite with the media because of course he is, who would be rude to the thing that makes the difference in your career? Lourdes is brash and cocky in a way that the media paints as American, but is the province of teenage boys the world over.

They’re the assured first and second draft picks, though no one’s sure which of them is going first and which of them is going second. Either way it’s to a terrible team, either way it’s an honour, so David doesn’t care at all, except in all the ways he does. 

Lourdes goes first, and it becomes this whole media storyline, American hockey triumphing over Canadian hockey, for the American press, an out of touch American franchise not knowing what talent is, for the Canadian press. So Lourdes goes to Florida, and David goes to New York, and they shake hands and smile for the press, Lourdes arm an unbearable weight around David’s shoulder, like a cocky reminder that he kept growing since they last met, and David stayed the same. They get asked all these questions about whether they base their play off the other guy, ignorant questions, because David played in the QMJHL, and Lourdes played in the OHL, and they barely even saw each other unless it was for an international tournament or one of the various events for the young and promising. Lourdes is such a non-entity in David’s life, has so little impact, but that’s not the media friendly answer, so they both chirp each other a little, Lourdes’ arm heavier and heavier, David’s smile feeling more and more fixed.

Before they start in the NHL, David barely knew Lourdes, and maybe that was for the best. 

*

David starts strong. Training camp, which he’d started dreading being cut from the moment he’d put the Islanders cap on his head, wasn’t the trial he expected, the team stumbling more than it moved, a couple vets the only glue, Kurmazov looking stern and thin lipped, all disappointment, which was fair, since he was just about the only guy performing, and had just locked himself in for another seven years. They’d ripped their roster to shreds over the off-season, the squad almost unrecognizable, so David was far from the only new face, and far from the only guy struggle to connect passes with guys he’d spent maybe two minutes talking to.

But David gets better, fast, picking up the easy saucers from Levesque, the bone-jarring slap passes Farmer had a tendency to dish, learns that waiting out Knutsen and letting him hang himself is the best way to get the puck in the back of the net. When training camp’s over, the team’s marginally tighter, and David’s still there, with chirps and grudging admiration from some of the older guys, with frantic speculation from the local media, especially once the preseason starts and he’s averaging a point a game, more assists than goals by far, Eisler’s one-timer something that makes goalies flinch, Eisler’s goal celebration enough to make David flinch, bear hugs closer to body checks than anything else. 

There’s no question of sending him down, they don’t have the depth in the roster they’d need to give him time to develop, so when the puck drops in October he’s on the bench, feeling faintly nauseous, maybe looking it, too, because Kurmazov tapped him hard on the helmet when they were heading out of the room, nudged him forward with a pat on the ass, more gentle than usual. 

David doesn’t make much of an impression in his first game, but he does in the second, tunes out the jeers from the Newark crowd and gets a pass from Farmer that just needs a gentle tap, a hard-angled side of the net tap-in that Gloucester never even sees. The puck ends up in his hands after the game, the time of the goal sloppily written out in silver sharpie, and David can’t stop running his thumb over it, not going home, not when he’s home, the Devils’ logo smooth under his thumb.

David starts strong, though the Isles don’t, managing two wins in their first ten games, two additional loser points, the whole thing ugly enough that frankly David would be over the moon to be at .500. But they’re scoring, their first two lines good enough, offensively, to at least bandage the defensive fuck-ups, and they’re throwing hits that rattle bone, Brouwer leading the league, and if you look at anything but the scores, anything but the defence, anything but goaltending, they’re doing alright. David’s doing alright, more than, has seven points in his first ten games, not the one-for-one pace he’d set in the preseason, but this means something, so he’ll take it.

*

If David starts strong, Lourdes starts like a bullet. The Panthers aren’t doing much better than the Isles, the same defensive gaps, the same weakness between the pipes, but the Panthers go out in flames every time, tally endlessly, but just give up more, no point even trying to switch up their goalies when they let four in, because the next guy will just let in the fifth. They are a brutal, glorious disaster, and Lourdes fits in perfectly.

Because Lourdes doesn’t play clean, Lourdes doesn’t play careful, he’ll shovel the puck in for filthy, ugly goals, he’ll take out the star centre at centre ice and look startled every time he gets called for interference, every time he backchecks and lands up in the box, sulking like a child. But no one awards prizes for pretty goals, and no one takes points away for brutality, and he just keeps racking up the points, until people are murmuring about the Calder a month in, as if that isn’t grossly premature. If David notches a two-point game, he gets asked if he saw Lourdes four points in a blowout against Carolina. When David lands his ass in the box for the first time, he gets asked if he’s adapting to Lourdes’ style, as if David slashes one guy and suddenly he’s thrown out every bit of elegance he has. Lourdes plays cheap. It’s hard to watch. David doesn’t know why everyone’s crowing about it. A goal’s a goal, maybe, but David will be damned if he has to hack his way to the Calder, he’d rather sit where he is, and know that at least he doesn’t play like Lourdes does.

They host the Panthers on the 19th of November, and the media attention is ridiculous. They’ve got a game against the Rangers in two days, a better team, a harder team to face, a division sharer, an _actual_ rival, and the team’s focused on that, just like they should be. The media, not so much. David didn’t realise how much they’ve made of their little storyline until every single question that afternoon is about Lourdes. How David’s feeling about finally playing Lourdes. How David feels about going second. How David feels about Lourdes being first again, sprinting past the other rookies. David says the usual polite bullshit Hockey Canada drilled him for, the non-committal, boring responses that no one was looking for but everyone was expecting, and then the truth, which sounds non-committal as everything else: that’s he’s going to play his game, and that doesn’t change if Lourdes is on the ice, that doesn’t change at all.

The game is a clusterfuck. The scoreboard may not say so, but the Isles collapse. Knutsen showed up tonight, and it’s a hell of a good thing he did, because they’re soft, out in front of him, spend their time in their zone or frantically trying to get out of the zone, just to fall back whenever someone on the Panthers nudges it right back in. At the start of the third it’s still tied at zero, but the Panthers have 22 shots to their pitiful 10, Coach Bauer is riding them like they’re losing badly. Which they deserve, as much as they deserve the look Knutsen’s got on his face, tight jaw, determined, not talking to anyone but his back-up, trying to keep in the zone so he can keep bailing their sorry asses out. David’s sore, got a check from Lourdes, of course, like a hello, that’s fucked with his shoulder, and he feels tense, tight, furious about things, taking it personally, maybe because everyone keeps telling him to take it personally. 

The stalemate lasts through half the period and another 8 shots from the Panthers, but Knutsen can only do so much, and the Panthers play dirty, coming in hot on a missed pass that’s entirely David’s fault, Bradley catching David on the way back with a stick around the shins and sending him sprawling, forcing a three-on-two. 

They don’t get a clear shot, but David’s still scrambling up when they form a screen, Lourdes maybe an inch from Knutsen’s face, crowding him into his crease when Steinberg shovels it in, and the bench is already erupting in protest when the goal lights up. They don’t wave it off, but it goes above their heads, Kurmazov gesturing furiously at the ref while Bradley stands back and gloats, like he knows something they don’t, which he might, because the call on the ice stands even after they send it back to Toronto.

There’s nothing after that, not really, ends 2-0 with an empty-netter to seal the deal, and the mood is dark going back into the room, Knutsen not talking to anyone, a pall settling, dead silent, right until the media crams its way in, fills the room with noise again. David’s tired now, drained, but that anger still simmers its way through him, jaw tight, muscles tense. He needs a shower, he needs to go home, punch a pillow, sleep on it until it pales the next morning, the way bad losses always do, but he can’t even do that, not yet, because of course the media wants to talk to him, of course they want to talk to him about Jake fucking Lourdes, who didn’t even have the goal, though he sure as hell should have been the reason to disallow it.

They ask him about the giveaway, which he deserves to be asked about, deserves to be called on, but then they shift to Lourdes quickly enough, ask about the hit, ask about how he felt about the goal. David does his best not to give them anything, but they keep harping on it, nagging, someone from NBC asking how he felt, playing Lourdes for the first time, as if David hasn’t ever been across the dot from his smirking, smug-ass face, hadn’t taken gold from his fingertips.

“I don’t know why you keep asking me about him,” David snaps, forgetting, for a moment, the nice, polite, non-committal answer they’re expecting. “As far as I’m concerned, Jake Lourdes is completely irrelevant.”

They muscle in closer, suddenly animated, and fuck. That’s going to be the sound-bite.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr!!](http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/)


End file.
